


from the ruins and from the ashes

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: Writing Prompts [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Flash Fic, Found Family, Other, caffeine challenge #27, post apocalyptic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 00:31:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16843537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: “I didn’t do it to save your life,” the girl sniffs, wrapping her arms around her knees and pointedly not looking at him, before jerking her chin in the direction of the last person in their makeshift foxhole. “I did it to save his.”Scott looks before he’s thinking about it. Neither of the strangers look like much, but the girl at least has sturdy clothes; the man’s clothes are bright, tattered things that don’t belong in the Ruins. They’re probably what attracted the monsters to them in the first place.“Well,” he says finally, because the girl’s still scowling down at her knees and the man still hasn’t said a word. “Thanks anyway. I don’t- I don’t think we’d have made it, if you hadn’t done that.” He pauses, then says, slowly, “What was that, anyway?”“Healing.” The man speaks up for the first time. His voice is much rougher and hoarser than Scott expected, even knowing how close they’d all been to death less than an hour gone. “Healing, but she did it…. wrong.”





	from the ruins and from the ashes

**Author's Note:**

> for Caffeine Challenge #27 hosted by @caffeinewitchcraft on tumbler, which means it was written in an hour
> 
> for the prompt: "I didn't do it to save _your_ life"

“I didn’t do it to save _your_ life,” the girl sniffs, wrapping her arms around her knees and pointedly not looking at him, before jerking her chin in the direction of the last person in their makeshift foxhole. “I did it to save his.”

Scott looks before he’s thinking about it. Neither of the strangers look like much, but the girl at least has sturdy clothes; the man’s clothes are bright, tattered things that don’t belong in the Ruins. They’re probably what attracted the monsters to them in the first place.

“Well,” he says finally, because the girl’s still scowling down at her knees and the man still hasn’t said a word. “Thanks anyway. I don’t- I don’t think we’d have made it, if you hadn’t done that.” He pauses, then says, slowly, “What was that, anyway?”

“Healing.” The man speaks up for the first time. His voice is much rougher and hoarser than Scott expected, even knowing how close they’d all been to death less than an hour gone. “Healing, but she did it…. wrong.”

“Hey,” she snaps, raising her head. “Your life _was_ intentional, don’t make me regret it.”

His voice gentles. “I’m sorry, Ash. I never meant for you to follow me.”

“Yeah, well.” She sniffs again. “You shouldn’t be out here without backup.”

“Neither should you,” he says wryly, before levering himself to his feet with a wince and offering his hand to Scott. “I’m Moth. This is my daughter, Ash. We scout the Ruins sometimes. You?”

Moth’s voice goes noticeably flat and neutral on the last word, and Scott can’t tell for certain whether that ‘you’ is meant as a 'why are you here,’ or a 'who are you,’ or even a 'what are you _doing_ out here.’ He opts to answer only what he feels he has to. “My name’s Scott. Your daughter was kind enough to catch me up in that spell as well.”

“Wasn’t on purpose,” Ash mutters, uncurling from her crouch to glare up at them both. “You’re an idiot.”

“Ash, you know it’s me they came after,” Moth says gently. “I should have asked someone to check my outfit first.”

She tosses her head back and groans. “Yeah, you should have, but at least you have an excuse. He’s not colourblind, he’s just loud.”

“Sorry,” Scott says, because he actually is, this time. “I’m not from here. Where I’m from, the monsters mostly react to movement. Are you- it’s colours and noise, here?”

“Well, bright colours and loud noise,” Moth amends. “They won’t react to us talking, but if we were to start shouting or I moved into view, they’d attack.”

“So we’re not safe here, is what you’re telling me,” Scott says slowly.

“Well we would be.” Ash stands up, still scowling. “But you two both managed to be targets, and I’m out of energy. Unless one of you has a spare set of clothes and a full meal on you we’re fucked.”

“Ashley,” Moth says. “Language.”

“We’re proper fucked,” she tells him.

Scott looks around, trying to see a way out of their situation. He’s still not entirely clear on what happened- one of the Ruins creatures had been chasing him, something he’d never seen before, something that had been horrifyingly capable of following him around blind corners and across moving water. The City Ruins he’d come from don’t have creatures that intelligent, but apparently the Forest Ruins had thrown better predators.

He’d thought it was going to catch him, actually, right up until a painful blast of magic had slammed him off his feet.

( _How_ did she weaponise healing? He’s never heard of a human doing that).

Only the vines that provide handholds up one side of the hole they’re hiding in prevent it from being a trap rather than a hiding place. Ash had clearly known the pit was here, and Scott’s not so certain it _hadn’t_ started life as a trap.

Scott’s also still trying to accept that his life’s just been saved by a surly teenager. He’s never thought of himself as a poor scout; it’s a little humbling to realise that she’s better.

“What if we swapped clothes?” he says, finally. “I think Moth and I are similar sizes. If we could split the coloured clothes between us, it might break up the brightness enough for us to make a run for it. If- making a run for it is something that works, here.” It doesn’t always back home; usually if you’ve reached the point of running you’re already in deep trouble, because running means they’ve seen you.

“That might work,” Ash admits, grudgingly, and then gets out of the way while Moth and Scott divvy up their clothes.

He can see how Moth made his mistake in the first place. Scott isn’t colourblind, but one of his best friends is, and he knows how reds can look too much like browns and greens too much like greys. It’s never been much of a problem for Jake, but then Scott supposes camouflage adaptations are more important in the forests than the cities, even now.

It doesn’t take too long to work out who ends up with what. No amount of miracles is going to get Scott into Moth’s pants, and vice versa, but they can switch shirts fine and although the dirt the vines are clinging to is dry and cracked Moth digs his hands in far enough to find damp soil and smears it over the brightest bits of fabric.

“You don’t have to help us,” he tells Scott, in a low undertone that probably doesn’t carry over to Ash. “Why are you?”

“Practicality, mostly,” Scott admits, twisting the rough shirt under his hands to make sure the bright hemline is hidden. “She did save me. Even if it seems like she might regret it, now.”

Moth’s voice gentles with pride as he says, “Ash doesn’t need a reason to help people. She never has.”

“We need to hurry, old man,” Ash says from the other side of their hiding place. “It’s almost dark.” Her eyes flash in the low light as she looks at Scott and adds, with a strange dissonant tone to her voice, “They hunt better, in the dark.”

“Ash,” Moth says, but he sounds worried this time. “How much of your energy _did_ you use?”

The girl shakes her head and the unsettling gleam fades back out of her eyes. “Enough.”

“Ash,” Moth says again.

Ash snarls, and Scott takes a startled step back.

“She’s-” He swallows as Ash’s head swings to face him. “You’re a mutate.”

“She’s my daughter,” Moth says, stepping between them.

Scott looks between them. Ash is several shades darker than Moth, but most families these days aren’t determined by blood anyway. Scott hadn’t thought anything of it. He hadn’t noticed that her skin is the colour of tree bark, that her eyes are the same colour as cloud shadows on leaves or that her hair matches the surrounding dirt near perfectly; he hadn’t looked that closely once Moth had claimed her as family. “She’s a _mutate_. She’s a- a creature, just like-”

Ash snarls at him again, stepping back into the shadows as she does. Her eyes spark again, green and darker green, leaves in shade. Whatever tenuous clawhold she’d had on humanity is clearly slipping away.

“She’s my _daughter_ ,” Moth repeats, firmly. “She and her brothers are family. Did you think they were all the same, out here?” His voice is changing, now, filling with scorn. “You’re not from any of the wild ruins, are you? The cities are different. The cities were _safe_. Out here-” He swipes his hand out, gesturing beyond the pit. “Out here’s different. It hit _everyone_.”

“They’re not human,” Scott says- repeats, distantly. “You can’t trust them.”

“She saved your life,” Moth says. “She didn’t have to save your life, but she did. And for what, I wonder? You lied. You don’t actually care at all.” He takes a step closer to Scott, unconcerned with the way Ash matches him, growling low from behind his back. “Why are you here?”

“They sent me here,” Scott says, stiffly, his eyes fixed behind Moth on the real danger. “There’s been reports.”

“Of mutates,” Moth says, voice low and certain. For a moment his eyes seem to flash too, and Scott jerks his gaze back to him, but it’s only a reflection of the dying sun. Moth is human, as far as he can see.

Moth is human and Ash did something reckless to save both their lives.

Scott takes a step back of his own, raising his hands palm- up in front of himself. “They sent me. They don’t expect me back.”

Some of the aggression goes out of Moth’s posture. Some of the unnatural light goes out of Ash’s eyes.

It’s the second one that decides him, because it means Ash is still listening.

“They don’t want me,” Scott says, voice pitched just as low as Moth’s had been. He can’t keep himself from flinching as he says it, but- Moth said Ash has brothers. If Moth is so accepting- then maybe Scott can finally stop running. “The cities weren’t _that_ safe.”

His hands are still facing Moth and Ash. He twists them, lets them see his claws.

“Oh,” Moth says, softly.

“Yeah. So.” Scott lets his hands drop. Ash has stopped growling, now, tilting her head at him instead. “I won’t be reporting back.”

“Oh,” Moth says again, stronger, and then lifts his head with a determined gleam in his eyes. “Well. Ash knows how to fight like that. That’s how we usually get out of these situations. Want to learn?”

For the first time in a long time, Scott lets his fangs show as he smiles. “I think I’d like that.”


End file.
